Life will never be the same for Smith, the phenom recruit who overdelivered on the hype
ATLANTA — It was third-and-11 with the College Football Playoff National Championship in the balance, and Ohio State had twice fecklessly run into the teeth of a Notre Dame defense that was trying desperately to get off of the field. Someone had to make a play, and on this Ohio State team who else would you expect to be called upon in a moment like this but freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith.
He had not seen the ball the entire second half, but lined up opposite excellent cornerback Christian Gray playing off coverage, Smith made room to work, and 45 yards later after a connection with Will Howard, he put the Buckeyes on the doorstep of sealing their ninth national championship (34-23 was the final after the drive ended with a late field goal).
“He was biting on anything that we were doing all game at him, so I just knew if I stick and run past him I’d be open,” Smith said on the field after the game.
Gray lined up inside and eight yards away from Smith at the snap, and Smith took off from the line of scrimmage running directly at him. As Gray retreated, he opened his hips toward the sideline to try and give chase, but he had in turn invited Smith to run to green grass. Howard had all the room he needed to throw the ball into open space to the player he called a “generational talent” in a postgame interview with ESPN. Notre Dame’s blitz wasn’t able to get home, and the gamble the Irish made leaving Grey on an island didn’t pay off.
“I knew the ball was coming my way,” Smith said with ski goggles on in a smoke-filled postgame locker room. “They were playing one-high, and the safety was shading over [to the opposite side of the field], and I knew Will was throwing that ball. “‘Just catch it. Just catch that ball.’ I didn’t care about scoring. I just wanted to catch it and seal the game.”
Since the day he showed up on campus in Columbus last year, it was clear to everyone that he was a special talent. Nobody around the program all spring or summer did anything to tamp down the hype around him. Besides a drop on the first target of his career, the No. 1-ranked recruit from the Class of 2024 surpassed even the loftiest expectations.
Smith had already scored early in the game on an eight- yard reception that may have seemed oddly familiar to Ohio State fans. It was a play that involved the wide receiver motioning into the backfield to catch a short pass. Alabama ran it against Ohio State the last time OSU was in the national championship game with wideout Devonte Smith, and the Buckeyes installed it this week into their own gameplan. Moments before the snap, Smith changed the way his feet were aligned. It was a subtle movement, but Gray, who was lined up against him on that play as well, noticed something was off. He wildly gestured to his teammates, but nobody picked Smith up and he walked into the end zone untouched.
“I was trying to play with their minds because they knew we ran a lot of RPOs,” Smith said. “So I was just messing with the DB’s head, you see when I switched my feet he was pointing like it’s going that way, it’s going that way. But I just made a play, that’s all.”
The legend of Jermiah Smith will only grow from here. It seems absurd to think that Smith still has two more seasons to play college football just like it seemed absurd that Ohio State could add a receiver to their room that was even better than Marvin Harrison Jr, Chris Olave, or the other NFL-bound pass catchers that have come before. He’s on the short list of players who will be on the cover of the CFB 26 video game when it releases this summer, and if any receiver is going to equal Devonta Smith’s feat of winning the Heisman as a wideout, Jeremiah is as good a bet as any. This will be the spring and summer of Smith, and life will change for him after a postseason where he shined brightest of all of the stars on Ohio State’s team. He vows to stay the same.
“I’m never gonna change who I am just because I know I’ve got all the hype around me,” Smith said. “I come from humble beginnings. This [success] really is nothing to me, just stay grounded and keep doing that I’ve been doing.”
What he’s been doing so far has been more than good enough.
